Sly Reflex Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 Did you play on normal or easy Bob? I played normal and... ... I was breezing through it and stuff, I'd occasionally die to a grenade or whatever. Then the game started flipping out with difficulty. I'd get one shotted. But instead of the usual screens I'd get what appeared to be custom screens of angels or demons with quotes telling me what a bad person I was and other stuff like that. War has no difficulty setting, just realistic. Philisophical man. It's things like that that are so deep I don't even know where to begin with talking about them. The whole dying instantly is a commentary on war itself I think comparing to how you'd react in a game by hiding behind a wall for a few seconds. The bit where Adams is lighting people up for you he's directly talking to you the player, as well as Konrad talking about the families of the people you're shooting. It all ties in. There's so many bits in this where you could just pluck them out and analyse them and get some meaning out of them. It's so much better done than the "Would you kindly?" stuff from Bioshock. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 I played on normal as well and it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case. Plus that would make me feel better about how much I died at certain points. If they did put a mechanic in there where you could just be instantly killed at any time I would love to know how they did it. Of course an easy explanation would be that the enemy could just headshot you, that would make sense. The loading screens were something I had completely forgotten about but when I was playing it they were the most obvious sign of Walker losing his mind. The fact that it would go from 'you are a monster' to, 'you did what you had to do, you can still save these people' was very relatable on a personal level for me. Not that I have ever had to make terrible decisions in a Dubai devastated by sandstorms but with anxiety and shit it is easy to understand. I think that is something very easy to tap into with gamers as well since most of us are a bunch of weirdos. It may have been posted before and you may rather just figure it all out for yourself but I found this interview really interesting. http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/07/20/the-story-secrets-of-spec-ops-the-line Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sly Reflex Posted May 20, 2013 Share Posted May 20, 2013 Normally it was the grenade indicator. If you stand near a grenade thats going to kill you the indicator is red. Once you get far enough away from it it turns grey. There were times where no matter how far away you were from the grenade it'd still kill you as the red never ever turned off. I found that to be my main source of instadeath. There were others though. Did you notice the stab at real world shootings being blamed on games as well? I don't think they could have delivered that line more sarcastically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HandsomeDead Posted August 11, 2013 Share Posted August 11, 2013 I have finished this game and know what everyone is talking about now. I really enjoyed it. I didn't think it was nearly as bad as a TPS as its reputation has. The AI is pretty unadvanved and sometimes the cover system gets all sticky and confusing but its saved by its level design, and the enemy placements compliment it pretty well so they don't have to move around so much to present a decent challenge. It's old an old fashioned kind of design but I still had a good time with it. An Dubai is an inspired choice; I found it more interesting than I was expecting. You don't see many post-apocalypses with that kind of tacky luxury peppering the environments that much. Taking cover behind a withered, bright yellow Bentley is pretty cool. But spoilery story stuff! I half figured out the ending about half way through, though the ride there wasn't as predictable, though I think I only guessed it because I knew the game had a psychological thing going for it. It is confusing and weird a lot of the time but I think that's the point, too. It was a game that made it hard to be rational and created some cool situations where it was hard to know how to react, especially since it wasn't always obvious. It's not like a prompt would come up and say press X to be bad or O to be good. So always feeling like you weren't making the best choice added to it a lot. The white phosphorous bit was really horrible to me, mostly because I did make that decision... I didn't wander around looking for an alternative, I just went right to that mortar to get the bastards, so when it terns out you hit civilians (and I'm sure it also alludes to the soldiers around them not being 'bad' either) I did have quite a bit of a 'fuck, what have I done?' moment. But with army games being what they are at the moment I'm glad we've got our Full Metal Jacket or Platoon in games now, or whatever else it could be. War is a real nasty thing and having a game that reflects that is a good thing. So this game gets a fuck yeah from me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sly Reflex Posted August 11, 2013 Share Posted August 11, 2013 I'm glad you liked it. I think it's a game everyone should play. It's too good to miss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illdog Posted August 11, 2013 Share Posted August 11, 2013 I have this, had it for a month or so and I feel inspired to play it. The power of forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted May 12, 2016 Author Share Posted May 12, 2016 I mentioned a book on page 1 of this thread, Killing is Harmless. It's a long form critique of the game, I've had it literally years, finally got around to reading it the past couple of weeks. The book is decent, it's basically just narrating a play through of Spec Ops pointing things out along the way. It's interesting though, there's a couple of things I missed and it's made me want to play through Spec Ops again at some point. It did get me wondering how much games have moved on since, I think they have just maybe not in the way we think Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HandsomeDead Posted May 12, 2016 Share Posted May 12, 2016 I think the game always played an old game. Sort of like a late era PS2 game like the Spec Ops games from that time and maybe Rogue Trooper. But I can't see the story stuff being out of time since I guess it maybe has a Greek Tragedy thing going on, vaguely, and that shit seems to always matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 a few of us are playing this at the minute if anyone else wants to join it I've played it through a few times at this point so have stuck it on the easiest difficulty. The enemies almost fall down before you pull the trigger, which is conceptually pretty interesting and did make me wonder for a minute if maybe I wasn't imagining it. I think you do lose something though, when Walker starts to scream that he's reloading and your teammates are panicking about a shotgun wielder heading your way, it's not really echoed in the gameplay when you're just spraying bullets and killing everyone with a glancing blow. I might pick it on the chapter select and bump the difficulty up I'm up to chapter 6. So far the main theme the game has touched on isn't as impactful as it would be in America. Not being American I don't have as much issue fighting against them or seeing them as the "bad guys" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one-armed dwarf Posted February 9, 2021 Share Posted February 9, 2021 Weirdly I wrote an essay on this once, can't remember it well but I think it was something about the whole 'would you kindly' thing that this game (sort of) goes for and how it reflects on games as recruitment tool/propaganda. How AAA entertainment can intersect with brainwashing Looking back I'm not sure how I feel about it. It was kind of heavy handed I think, both the game and my attempt at making a thesis lol. The game I compared it to was Full Spectrum Warrior which was actually based off of a real training sim they used in the army, except I think one difference they made is that in the game version of FSW you could not kill civilians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 yeah, I'm pretty sure I wrote something on Bitparade ages ago too. Can't remember what it was about, possibly the illusion of choice in games Don't watch this unless you've played through the game, but I watched a couple of soldiers talk about the game. It's not all you'd hope, seems they just watch videos of various war based videogames. They seem to like it for the most part, and it is hearing them talk about how realistic the look it, their experiences of sandstorms, that's kind of cool less cool is their take on a couple of war crimes, but they are soldiers I suppose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maryokutai Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 This is currently on sale on Xbox and is backwards compatible btw. I never finished it on the 360 for some reason, I should really give this another go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinymcshine Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 I've never played this, but have had a hankering as the storyline is rumoured to be great - given its been well over 5 yrs since I bought something from the MS Store I wonder how easy it'll be to buy the 360 version in the sale (I assume they just accept direct payment now rather than having to buy MSPs?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroed Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 @shinymcshine Yep, it's easier to buy 360 games now. Speaking of which, I bought this yesterday. I am at the beginning of chapter 13, so nearing the end I believe. It's definitely gone some places, will see how I feel when I'm finished. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabby9 Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 Just started going through this today, picked it up for £1.58 for Steam. Enjoying it so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroed Posted February 10, 2021 Share Posted February 10, 2021 And finished. Linear as you like, but the story was very well told and it definitely makes you think. I'm glad I have finally got around to playing it. looking at the achievements after I completed the story, I like that there are choices you make throughout the game that aren't just obvious press LT for this or RT for that. Near the end where you are surrounded and have to escape an area and I shot into the air instead of taking out those around me, that's quite a rare achievement on 360, most just shot their way through the crowd. And at the end I held off, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted February 10, 2021 Author Share Posted February 10, 2021 you're a good person @retroed , I did the same on my first play through. I know certain people that didn't though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
one-armed dwarf Posted February 11, 2021 Share Posted February 11, 2021 Not quite on topic* but I see that 9 Days in Fallujah has been revived, white phosphorus was used there in the Iraq War. People roll their eyes at you if you suggest AAA war games can be a type of propaganda but they can be very insidious What would you call this, the 'military entertainment complex' or something. *but imo very relevant to the point of the game, it is all about this shit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DANGERMAN Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 yeah, I think the way the military (ours, not even talking about America) is insidious, cynical and opportunistic. I'm also not a fan of games based on real wars, especially specific battles. There's exceptions, like Valiant Hearts, but for the most part it feels really tasteless and glamorising of something that must have been terrible to live through Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shinymcshine Posted February 21, 2021 Share Posted February 21, 2021 Enjoyed the story, still no fan of FPS games though, and put it down to 'easy' for the last few chapters just to see it through. Happy I played it though, nice take on the genre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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